


Familiar

by princeparakeet



Series: Ephemeral/Eternal [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Eventual Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, LMAO, Loss, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, Triggers, basically it's a mix of canon and AU, but Morgan still eventually shows up, cause we all know what actually happens, emotional fragility, is my kink, maybe? - Freeform, meaning there was frick frack, where MU doesn't fuckin marry because who needs a man??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-03 07:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11527149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeparakeet/pseuds/princeparakeet
Summary: Lon'qu prefers to work alone.Familiar: well known from long or close association; a demon supposedly attending and obeying a witch, often said to assume the form of an animal.





	1. Chapter 1

It started slowly, though he did not yet know how. She would abruptly and curtly greet him outside the mess hall, as she did for all the other shepherds, checking a list in one of her many worn tomes, bursting at the seams with wrinkled and stuffed notepaper, water-damaged, burned by fire, and yet still held together by a few precarious threads. It was curt, formal, but at the same time warm and sunny. Her smile sometimes blinded him on particularly early mornings, or gloomy days when he was too tired from sleeplessness to think—her face huddled under her large coat against the pouring rain, chin covered with a scarf when it snowed. It was an almost-daily sight, and it became routine. Lon’qu had begun to get used to her face. Familiarity, what he felt when with Basilio or Flavia. 

But she was just his commander—or, second in command, the tactician of their rag-tag army. Chrom, the crown prince of Ylisse, was his actual commander. Though Lon’qu’s true loyalty lay with Basilio back in Ferox, he made no complaints of his current situation; as long as he was fed, sheltered, and given ample time to train, he would not bother mentioning how careless or asinine he found Chrom’s cause, or his morals, his beliefs. Lon’qu had been a sword for hire too long to not be cynical about trifling ideals such as destiny, bonds, or fate.

But the tactician obviously did not share his disdain for the prince—she was at Chrom’s side any time she was not greeting each Shepherd by name at the mess tent, supervising training, or huddled away in her own private tent, late into the morning hours, grueling over battle plans and strategies like a particularly dedicated chess player. Lon’qu had been up on the watch more than once and seen her filter in and out of her own tent, back to the mess, snatching an apple, back to her tent, watched her shadow cast by the candlelight as she paced or hunched over her books. She was often so absorbed in her own thoughts that she never noticed him, as he also hid in the dark by the edge of camp. 

He could hardly say he was keeping watch over the camp while he did this—she was merely entertainment to occupy his eyes before his thoughts wandered to darker places—but they had not engaged with any major foes yet. Though he understood the importance of constant vigilance, he could not help but hold contempt for the small measure of monotony life in the company of the Shepherds had given him. He preferred doing what he pleased, rather than listening to a female tactician and a dreamer of a prince haul them around the continent doing gods knows what—helping mere peasants and villagers instead of building up strength, staking out territory, training, gathering recruits. That is how he might have led his own band of travelers, of warriors. But he preferred to work alone.

Unfortunately, the tactician Aurora had begun to notice this.

“If we have just one unit out of place or step, the whole army is lost,” she insists, raising a small fist in a preaching gesture. Lon’qu does his best not to scoff and covers it with a growl. She had cornered him on his way to the practice dummies one snowy and bright morning.

“I believe that is a little extreme,” he retorts, tightening his grip on his sword pommel, a habit whenever someone, especially a female, engaged him in conversation. The fur lining to his coat, worn especially in colder months, a gift from Basilio back in Ferox the night before he departed with the Shepherds, tickles the back of his neck below his ear. The wind blows, sharply, ruffling his dark and thick hair. Aurora’s cloak is buffeted by the wind. She wears a scarf and longer-sleeved, high-necked shirt to shield her typically very exposed skin from the cold. _Plegians…_ he thinks to himself, scornful of anyone not equipped to survive the cold. Especially those pale witches from the South.

“It is not,” she replies, putting her gloved hands on her hips. She looks him pointedly in the eye and he looks away. “I know you work on your own, Lon’qu, but it is high time we started working together—as comrades.” Her voice is unexpectedly warm.

Lon’qu almost flinches at her words. How did she see through him so easily? He grits his teeth and flashes her a glare, the sun shining on the snow enough to blind him.

“I am no one’s comrade—I am a subordinate, woman,” he practically spits, bites back, and shoves his way past her, boots crunching in the snow.

He notices an expression—hurt—flicker across her face as he passes. What did she have to know of the ways he operated? She merely had to point him at the enemy and say when, just like one of her chess pieces.

Lon’qu had felt this way most of his life—since he realized he enjoyed cutting people down with his sword, since he had run far and hard and away from Chon’sin and Ke’ri’s angry parents. More than angry. Devastated and weak. Broken. He withdrew into himself and became a tool, something to be used to wreak havoc or win a battle, a throne, some money. He reduced his agency so his impact would be limited as well. He couldn’t hurt anyone if he wasn’t personally involved—just his sword. Nothing personal to the tactician—but he simply would not be her comrade. Or anyone’s “comrade.”

She stops him a week later outside the mess hall, as he is hauling a tower of clean dishes away to be packed in their respective wicker baskets lined with fur and straw. They would be striking camp tomorrow morning to make their way closer to enemy lines. Closer to the real battles that Lon’qu had been idly pining for this whole month.

A small, cool hand on his bicep, just above his elbow, feels like a hot, searing iron. Her grip is gentle but stops him immediately. The dishes teeter dangerously with their remaining momentum and he glares down at her, though she is not much shorter in stature. The sun was out today, the snow just beginning to melt and make mud out of the flat fields where they camped.

“Can I help you?” he asks, more brusquely than he intended, and chokes on any other words that might have attempted to leave his throat.

“Yes,” she says flatly, looking up at his dark eyes through her brunette veil of hair. She releases his arm quickly. “Train with me. Every day until our next battle.”

Lon’qu sputters, his fingers aching against the weight of the plates. _What?!_ He coughs, clearing his throat as red rises to his face out of embarrassment or anger, he does not know. Quickly, he pushes past her again, partly running away, partly focusing on his previous task. If she wanted to train, she could train with someone else. She had the crown prince, did she not? He hears her call out to him, her footsteps muffled by the blood rush in his ears. In about eight strides he is at the stack of packing baskets in the middle of the camp clearing. Gingerly, he squats and lays the plates in their proper container, halving the stack, dividing the plates into groups of threes, staring obsessively at his task.

“Lon’qu!” Aurora shouts, kicking the basket. A group of plates fall out of his fingers with a clatter and he bites his lip, sighs, growling low and looking up to where the abrasive tactician stands, hands on her hips again, pout and hair messy. A familiar look to him now, he supposed. Familiar.

“You _will_ train with me, and that’s an order.” 

He stands, drawing himself to his full height. Still, the top of her head comes to about his nose, and she glares up at him. He glares down at her, noticing mud caked onto his boots, splattered onto his pants from whatever the tactician kicked at him. Great. He really had just washed those recently.

“I suppose it can’t be helped, then,” he says, shrugging, half-referring to the mud on his pants.

They train together for a week before their first battle. It is a brutal, bloody one, but for some reason Lon’qu can’t help but feel it could have turned out much worse. The Pegasus knights are worse for wear, but they return triumphant over the Risen and Grimleal, having freed another town from the oppressive hand of the dark dragon, the fear and war-mongers.

It occurred to him, in the midst of battle as he saw Aurora’s flashing purple and gold coat, her pale skin, that she too, was Plegian, and yet didn’t subscribe to the same demonic cult that the South seemed to embrace. The cult they were warring against. The shepherds said it was memory loss—that the prince had found her without a memory in her head—just a name, dressed in that coat, holding a tome, in a field.

She was a curious personality, abrasive, but powerful and commanding when she needed it. Inspirational, even, he mused, as she gave a rousing speech at the mess that night. Chrom embraces her and even Lon’qu feels inclined to raise his mug of tea in the toast. He chats with Vaike and Gregor over dinner—some of the few men he found bearable in this army. It was just one of many battles, yet they were as happy as if they had won the war.

It was cold again for the rest of the month, not as heavily snowy but a bitter and dark kind of cold, a chill in the air that froze the ground and spit flurries every once in a while, but never renewed the world in white. Lon’qu disliked this type of winter the most, but had learned to adapt. The air was cold and silent most days, the wind listless or vicious and biting with no in-between. The leafless trees reached curling and gnarled fingers out into the gray sky, clattering against one another in the silence. A squirrel darts over a limb, carrying a clump of grass in its mouth. A black-bird crows far away, and Lon’qu looks up at the Ylissean insignia raised high on a flag above the main war tent, listlessly blowing from its pole.

He was taking a break from training on his own—waiting for Aurora to arrive from a meeting with the prince. His bare arms against the cold felt nice, especially since his blood was flowing from earlier practice. He had already broken a mild sweat. He had ditched his heavy coat and arm guards for his light blue tunic, preferring to avoid overheating. He leans against his sword in its sheath, pressing the heel into the ground, watching the line he had already drawn up in the sand for their sparring match. Aurora had improved immensely in their training together, and…he didn’t want to admit it, but so had he. Strictly swordplay, no magic or incantations. 

He did not work with others, typically. But, for some reason….he did not mind working with her. Just her. The prince, the rest of the army, he could do without. He is surprised to find himself smiling as he thinks of the tactician, calm washing over him, and he abruptly pushes the thought of her from his head. _Confusing feelings_ , he thinks to himself, deepening his frown into a scowl. He grinds the butt of his sword sheath further into the dirt, as if squishing a bug. 

“Ah, Lon’qu! You’re already here. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He looks up as she walks towards him, the tree he sits under, shedding her coat from her broad shoulders and tossing it to the ground. Her hair is getting long, he notices, as she has tucked it up into a miniature ponytail. Swiftly, she draws her sword, a dull version of the one she uses in battle, and mock-poses for him, her grip loose, her hips cocked and head turned dramatically away from him. 

“Ready?” she croons, laughing at herself. Lon’qu’s lips curl up into a small sort of smile.

“Heh,” he mutters in a half-chuckle, clambering to his feet. What an odd woman.

“Wow, that’s the second laugh in three weeks! I’m pretty proud of myself,” she exclaims as she walks over the far side of the sparring circle. She flashes him a playful grin, twirling her sword around her wrist and relaxing back into her real sword stance. Stocky, well-built, she had quite the makings of an excellent fighter, Lon’qu had found, training with her.

But why had she been so insistent on making him train with her every day they were not engaging the enemy? Lon’qu had not pushed the issue or bothered to ask, but it still confused him. Though by now he did not mind her, he was unsure of what this did to warm him to the rest of the army. Her tactics were brilliant, he had to acknowledge, albeit confusing and convoluted. What tricks might she pull, or already be pulling? With a joking personality underneath a serious and leader-like façade, Lon’qu did not know what to expect.

She actually bests him that day. An opening in his defenses, miniscule and momentary, brings him down. That, and he trips over his own two feet in an absurd stumble.

“Damn!” he curses, spitting out blood from a bitten tongue onto the cold and caky dirt. Aurora laughs, hoisting her sword over his shoulder. It’s their third match, granted, so she had already lost twice to him. But she had been improving, no doubt. Quicker to think, stronger swings, faster parries and more blocks instead of blind attacking. He now felt like the clumsy one, bitterness coiling within him at the thought.

However, it was not just her improving swordsmanship that had beaten him—he was also distracted. In the heat of the moment, the middle of a downward slash that he effortlessly parried, Lon’qu found his eyes straying, following the lines of her body, so rarely free of the confines of that massive cloak. Her collarbone, her neck, her soft, white skin—he mused that it might be soft if he touched it—the hem of her lighter undershirt and then…underneath…

“Y-you should dress more conservatively,” he sputters, getting to his feet again. The words had simply escaped him—the rush of adrenaline and blood from fighting and falling, a pounding head had made him confused.

“Excuse me?” she snaps, nostrils flaring, eyebrows shooting into her hair, mouth turned into a scowl. It was an ugly look on her, Lon’qu decides.

“I said, you should—” he stutters now, knowing he hadn’t meant to say that and shouldn’t have.

“No, I heard what you said, Lon’qu, loud and clear!” she scoffs lowering her sword, glancing away. “That has nothing to do with anything, anyway, I’m sweating like a dog! Why does _my_ dress affect _your_ ability to train?” Aurora’s face is red, eyes downcast, kicking at the dirt with her boot. She grits her teeth. The sun has begun to peek out from behind a heavy and low cloud-cover, and Lon’qu just wishes they could get back to training. Damn his stupid mouth!

Lon’qu mentally kicks himself over and over and he tries to right the situation. “What I meant was—I did not intend to—” he stammers, face reddening and heat rushing to his skin. This is why he did not “work with,” others, and he knew it. His mouth was unwieldy enough with the few words he knew in the common tongue to mess up training, let alone plain conversation.

Aurora holds up a hand to stop him, throwing him a stab in his chest more painful than the fall he had just taken. She sheaths her sword and turns to go. “Never mind. Training again tomorrow. Good work,” she says flatly, her voice hardened.

Lon’qu is frozen and speechless for a moment as she walks away. Then, something inside him spurs him on, desperate and afraid, pushes more words straight out of his stomach.

“Wait!” he cries, voice gruff. Whirling and dropping his practice sword, he stumbles to grab her dark purple coat from underneath the dead tree where she left it. He jogs over to her with it fisted in his hand, only a few paces away.

“You forgot this,” he says breathlessly, extending his hand with the cloak in it. He feels silly right now, wondering why he did not just leave it for her to go get later, for herself.

“I…” he starts as she glances at him, the cloak in his hand, then back to him. After a pause, she takes it, flipping it around and slipping into the broad, gold-lined shoulders with ease.

“I apologize for any indecency.” His face feels flush, and he stares at the ground, at her boots. She clears her throat, momentarily. He looks back up as a small, playful smirk crosses her face.

“Thank you, Lon’qu. I’ll see you.”

He feels light-headed, confused as she walks away, and his head swims and heart races. It was simply the physical aftermath of a hard sparring match, that was all. Yes. He decides to sit and polish his sword until supper, to distract himself from any more thoughts of the youthful tactician, the short brown hair, the radiant smile and soft hazel eyes that had become so familiar to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first published fic, I wrote this in about 2 hours and i am very obsessed with Lon'qu, please forgive any grievous tense change errors, I don't write in third person much! More chapters to hopefully follow! I wanted to explore an ambiguous passage of time and army life with these two. My forever husbando.


	2. Chapter 2

Winter had begun to morph into spring, like a hibernating beast shedding its drab fur coat, meant for survival instead of aesthetics. The world came alive again, slowly but surely. The sun was not too hot, as Lon’qu appreciated, and he spent more time out alone in the grassy Ylissean fields and beech tree groves that they had begun to camp near which made for excellent shelter from the occasional spring rains—instead of the broad plains of central and Western Ferox. 

The mad king, Gangrel, was dead, and it seemed as if they war had been won. Lon’qu was not much for rejoicing—he was suspicious of anything good, too good to be true, wary of peace and tranquility in the way only someone traumatized by his past was. He preferred to quietly welcome the world into its spring season as the others drank and made merry in the mess.

A lightning bug, out in broad daylight, crawls over the tip of his index finger, its feelers and antennae twitching, the sun glinting off its matte black body. It appears hard, but Lon’qu knows he could easily crush it in his hand. It continues to crawl, over the plains and ridges in his hand as if searching for the horizon of a brand-new world—upended and disoriented and yet still pressing on.

It abruptly extends its wings from their shell-like casing, light and waspy things, transparent in the bright sun, and flies away. Lon’qu follows it with his eye as far as he can manage, then drops his hand. The wind blows peacefully in the growing grass, rustling tree branches with buds so full they would burst into new greenery within the coming week.

He had spoken to Basilio, on a visit to Ferox, about the tactician. He had not planned this, nor truly meant to say it, but words of admiration poured out for her. His opinion of her truly had morphed, taken shape, and changed over their time working together. He spoke of how she had fearlessly guided them through skirmishes and ambushes, managed the convoy and all their supplies, and yet never failed to greet each Shepherd individually outside the mess or around camp. Chrom be damned. He was the pretty face to all her hard work. She even held meetings with simple infantry, foot soldiers whose names he did not know. He heard that there, she discussed their home, Ylisse, with them, shared stories, asked if they wanted to write to their families. Perhaps it was foolhardy to talk about these things with soldiers, but for some reason it resonated with Lon’qu. 

Her energy seemed boundless, though he knew of some of her sleepless late nights—the candlelight going out and sputtering up again, the sound of tossing and turning in her cot. She mentioned it offhand once during training—which was no longer exclusively with him—that she had nightmares. He made a mental note of it but did not mention his own, simply replying with a grunt. He preferred to keep to himself, despite the closeness the tactician seemed to have imposed upon him. Or….eased him into. 

Sure, she could be closer to him than other women—he even saw her as less feminine than others such as Sumia and Maribelle—but he would not divulge his past or secrets when he saw no need. They worked together on the battlefield more fluidly now, teaming up and weaving in and out of skirmishes seamlessly, their strength unmatched. He felt pride well in his chest at the thought of a powerful partner.

Basilio had listened patiently as Lon’qu found himself blabbering more than he ever had since he was a juvenile just taken in by Flavia, confused and hungry and anxious. The Khan took a slow sip of his drink, the glow of the fire glinting off his bare head. He flashed Lon’qu a thin-lipped, knowing smile.

“You sound like you’re in love, my boy.”

The idea was preposterous, and Lon’qu choked, stammering, clamming up and staring into his own empty plate of food and untouched mug of drink. He did not have time for such feelings, for a fellow soldier on the battlefield, in the middle of a war. Though everyone around him was acting like it was over. Ferox knew better, and the visit to the Khan’s stronghold had comforted him. He saw, dare he say it, familiar faces amongst the warriors in the fortresses, and heard even more familiar whisperings of battle.

Valm was stirring to the West, their emperor, Walhart, amassing his forces and suppressing the people of his homeland—Chon’sin. Though that was no longer his home, Lon’qu knew. Ferox, where it was warm and safe and filled with power, not a country of grace and humility and ceremony, was his home now. He would not press to travel out that way unless necessary. Unless ordered.

The visit to Ferox was short-lived, and Lon’qu found himself thinking of it often as he idled away his days again, taking up whittling small models out of beech-wood as a sort of hobby. Basilio had sent him a small, elegant knife as a present the second he found out. Lon’qu reluctantly accepted. He remembers the gift like a talisman, something important, like a heart beating against his hip, tucked away inside his red obi sash.

Aurora’s presence around camp was scarce nowadays. She visited the now-ruler’s palace often, cooing over his baby girl, Lucina, often darting into town to purchase the odd gift or trinket for the child. Somehow, sometimes, he was grateful to be unbothered by the strange woman, to have some quiet days where she wasn’t throwing hard, unripe figs at him in jest or mocking his dark demeanor, prodding him about strategies or swordplay. Yet, those things had morphed into normalcy over time, something he supposed he came to expect. It was what being in the shepherds was like, for someone such as him. 

He thinks of her too often, he decides, physically shaking his head in an attempt to clear it of mental mire. The wind blows softly, the sun ducking behind a cloud. He sits at the top of a hill overlooking camp, but faces away from it, staring up into the far-away mountains, blue ridges against the horizon shrouded in dark purple clouds. The wind strengthens, a powerful updraft, telling of another rainstorm on its way. Lon’qu closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, glad to have found some minute of peace again, one of the few times in his so far short life.

Noises below stir him from a short slumber that Lon’qu realizes he nodded off into. He blinks, rubbing his eyes, head snapping up from where it lolled near his chest. The air is cooler now, the sun snuffed out. Rain begins to spurt from the sky as he makes his way back to camp, discreetly sliding down the hill behind one of the larger tents. He dusts himself off, straightens his sword belt, and strides into camp.

Aurora has returned, leading a white horse by the reins, tossing its head and mane, whinnying and braying. She lifts a hand to pull back her heavy hood, her normally sunny face in a subdued sort of expression. A few shepherds and army hands hail her with short greetings, but generally the simultaneous bustle and calm of camp remains unperturbed. Lon’qu, his legs and feet carrying him against his will, approaches the tactician, gripping his sword pommel to sturdy himself. 

“Aurora,” he says curtly, giving her a sharp nod. She hardly pauses to reply, raising a hand in feeble greetings while brushing past him. Lon’qu bites his lip in surprise. Somehow, he expected more. No snarky greeting, no playful push or even a half-hearted grin. He decides not to follow her, does not press, but cannot push the incident out of his mind for the rest of the quiet, rainy evening.

He goes through his somewhat monotonous nightly routine. Eat an early supper after aiding the cooks in meal prep (it was the least he could do now that they weren’t forced to be on a rotating schedule), spend some time in the armory scrutinizing the swords that mattered the most to him, those that he used. Then return to his tent in the dark, not knowing quite what time it was, guided by the smoldering torches spitting and sputtering in the rain outside.

He lifts his tent flap and fumbles for the candle on its stand, stooping back outside to catch a flame from one of the torches. The shadows flicker, whip and stretch mysteriously, ethereally, over the canvas walls. His spare lodgings were only ever filled with what he needed. A pack with his winter clothes, his swords in their various sheaths, a bar of scented soap from Ferox that he did not mind traveling with, his cot with a light blanket thrown over it, and a small, brown and worn book of short stories that he kept for nights, for times, like this.

It is after he is stripped down to just his tunic and underclothes, stretched out on his cot, arm raised over his head holding the storybook, that he hears someone clear their throat outside the entrance to his tent. He almost drops the book on his face in surprise. 

“Who is it?” he calls, gruff and irritated. Certainly, the alarm could rouse him if there was an ambush, not a personal messenger?

A heavy, thick silence hangs in the air, the rain pattering on the tent. A cool breeze catches the bottom of the tent flap, blowing it slightly open. Lon’qu sees brown boots, and…a purple coat.

“Aurora?!” Lon’qu hisses as the tactician catches the edge of the tent flap in her fingers, sheepishly peering back at him from underneath her dark hood.

Within minutes Lon’qu is reluctantly dressed, his book discarded, standing out in the rain with Aurora. He wouldn’t have let her into his tent if someone had paid him or held a dagger to his throat. 

“Care to tell me why you’re disturbing me in the middle of the night?” Lon’qu grumbles, glaring down at her and shoving his hands underneath his arms to keep them warm. The rain was chilly, and he had no hood. Soon he would be soaked.

“It is not that late,” Aurora replies, absently watching as she pushes the toe of her boot into the wet mud. “And I was wondering if we could…” she trails off, voice getting softer. “Talk.”

A few minutes later and they’re in the mess hall, only lit by a single torch in the corner that casts strange, angular shadows over the tables and chairs, over Lon’qu’s and Aurora’s faces. Lon’qu rests his forearms on the table, staring into the different curls, swirls and eddies within the slab of a former tree. He was not sleepy, not tired, but had simply been caught off guard. He didn’t like that. He was perturbed, uneasy.

This was absurd. Why had he not objected to her strange request? Why had he not just sent her away? He felt his pulse quicken at the thought of things spiraling out of his control. Basilio’s knowing smile is burned to the inside of his eyelids and he wants to run away. 

Aurora clears her throat, seated at the table across from Lon’qu “I understand that our comradeship got off to a bit of a…rocky start,” she says, folding her hands together.

“And I understand that your loyalty does not lie with me, but with Ferox. And Basilio. However, I…” she pauses, glancing off to the side. Lon’qu narrows his eyes at her—he could contradict her on that statement if he wished, but says nothing. Ferox was a sort of home, a shelter. His loyalty was flexible. Negotiable. 

Her form is vague in the strange light—all shadows and angles and blurs. He notices a flush on her cheeks. The rain continues outside. A stray droplet from his soaked hair runs down his neck behind his ear. The air feels stale in here, and Lon’qu’s throat clenches. 

She sighs, shoulders sagging, hands fumbling a bit. “I feel that I can trust you. You are one of the few people I truly…” She trails off.

 _This is hardly talk if all she is going to do is preach at me…_ he thinks to himself, running one of his thumbs over the other, focusing instead on that calming feeling. Still, her unsteadiness, her hesitancy and anxiety about the way she is speaking to him, puts him off. It was unusual for her, an abnormal demeanor she had carried back into camp that afternoon. He wanted it to cease.

“Out with it.” Lon’qu snaps, curt and gruff. He glances up at Aurora to see her reaction. Her eyebrows are furrowed, staring down at the space between their hands on the table. She swallows hard. In that moment, Lon’qu feels…drawn to her. Like a moth to a flame. Led like a fool to a fiery demise.

Slowly, like an inch-worm, or, like that little, lost lightning bug curiously exploring his fingers, he reaches his broad hand out over Aurora’s own. Suddenly, his heart begins to race. He knows not what he is doing, but cannot stop now. He lowers his hand, and their skin brushes, just slightly, as he clenches her smaller, gloved palm, in between his rough fingers. He gives it an experimental squeeze, and then realizes that he is holding his breath. His arm is trembling.

Aurora curls her fingers and squeezes back. Then, slips her hand out from underneath his own, placing her long sleeves into her lap. Lon’qu is left with a dry mouth, dry lips, and a hand that suddenly feels wrong where it sits. He closes his fingers in a fist, pulling it nearer to himself, a sort of protective gesture. Shielding his heart.

“We march for Valm in a fortnight.”

The flame of the torch crackles and snaps in the confines of the tent, filling the silence. The air is too close and hot. Lon’qu sighs. What did he think she was going to tell him? He expected this anyway, deep in his heart. He knew peace was too good to believe in, not for a second.

“Why tell me first? Not the other Shepherds?” he asks, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. _Why did I touch your hand? Why did you draw away?_ he asks himself. His hand was cold. He felt…darkness. Bewitched, in the flame and shadow and heat and rain. He risks a glance up at her, and she meets his gaze without fail. She was already watching him, her hazel eyes steely and lit by the torchlight. There is that disturbed feeling again, unsettling. 

“I am offering you leave. Discharge, even.” She clears her throat again, attempting an air of professionalism, of formality. As if trying to dissipate into vapor the words that she just uttered. 

He blinks. Once. Twice. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he says, leaning forward slightly in his chair. “What does that have to do with—”

“Lon’qu, I’m trying to save you. Get out of here. Go home,” she presses, shaking her head, looking away. Rage suddenly bubbles like lava in his chest, heat rising up his neck, creeping underneath his collar. He sees red. 

“I am one of your strongest fighters, this is madness!” Lon’qu shouts, slamming his fist onto the table with unexpected force. The legs rattle. Lon’qu realizes that he is half-standing, his chair fallen over, leaning across the table toward Aurora. He would grab her by the collar if he had less restraint, if he didn’t know how well she could defend herself. If he did not care.

“What are you trying to save me from?” he asks, haltingly, reeling back and voice dropping in volume. “Does Chrom know?” he presses. “Do you even have the authority to do this?” His world is spinning. 

Aurora does not answer.

He momentarily tries to bury his pride; it was not often that such a deal was struck with simple mercenaries, one of which Lon’qu considered himself. Perhaps he should accept and return to Ferox. He takes a deep breath, knowing he cannot, feeling pulled in two different directions, wrenched apart at the seams. Caught in a liminal space. 

“I detest saying this, but…” He sighs, leaning heavily into the table, into the heels of his hands. “This has become like a second…home…to me. Here. The encampment. The Shepherds. W-with…” He stammers, his voice dying. _With you._ He does not say it and hides the words like stones beneath his tongue, secreting them away as he feels his heart threatening to burst from within his ribcage. His eyes fall to her.

Aurora sits still and silent, her lips pressed together and gaze level, steady. He cannot tell what emotion lies behind those eyes.

“It was an offer,” she murmurs. “There are things you don’t know, Lon’qu, that—”

“No.”

The longer that time passed, the older that he got, Lon’qu seemed to grow weary of lacking agency. This was one thing in which he suddenly had a choice.

He would fight. He would not leave her.

“I refuse your kind offer,” he says. “We march for Valm in a fortnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out WAAAAY longer than I intended. I don't know if I should switch POVs, but obviously MU is conflicted and feeling things as well. I mean....I hope its obvious. maybe not. but Things are goin on under the surface. I hope my characterizations are consistent enough.
> 
> Also forreal this is what I listened to for hours while writing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY83q9_b0Js


	3. Chapter 3

It was one of her most insane strategies yet—setting their boats ablaze, a reckless brush with death, to take down Valm’s fleet. Lon’qu appreciated their victory and the minimal loss of life, but did not appreciate diving into the salty sea, ocean-water chilling him to the bone, crusting on his skin, stinging his eyes, and nearly claiming him with slithering fingers of kelp. He couldn’t imagine the panic or humility he would have felt had he not been strong enough to swim to shore, quite literally dragging himself onto the sand and snorting water out of his nose. He couldn’t remember the last time he had swam, only that he could, as he kicked furiously in his heavy garments. He remembered thinking to Naga, to any entity, that he should have drowned. Save him from this insane war.

As he collapses on the beach—his lips touching the ground and the sounds of roaring flames and lapping ocean waves faintly muffled against the sand in what seems like a faraway world—memories flicker through his mind, from the battle, that he would rather forget.

It was an out of body-experience, remembering this so clearly. Lon’qu closes his eyes and breathes deeply into the sand, wet and rough on his cheek.

Aurora’s back was turned to him as she dueled a Valmese mounted solider, one of the higher-ranking knights. He could see the scene crisp and clear in his mind, her hair flying in the wind, cloak billow out behind her, long sleeves falling to expose her pale and muscular arms, one hand raising a tome, the other hovering above it, long and thin fingers curling maliciously, her mouth open while shouting an incantation, electricity beginning to crackle in the salty air around her. Chrom was by her side, as always, taking aim with Falchion at the same mounted warrior who brandished a spear, poised to plunge it downward towards the Ylissean prince.

He was on the captain’s deck at the time. And beneath him, he saw an archer aim an arrow towards the fray, the bow as tall as the man himself, strong and curved and powerful. He drew the thick string back all the way to his chin. And let go. Lon’qu does not remember what happened next, what he did, only that there was an immense pain blossoming, like a fire hungrily consuming a piece of parchment, over the left side of his body, and blackness, salt, and water. Fire. Heat and no thought in his mind as he furiously kicked his way to safety. 

He did not think—he merely acted.

Now, on the beach, his actions come rushing back to him as he tastes blood, retching seawater and coppery spittle onto the wet sand. It sticks to his skin as he feebly tries to raise his head, unsuccessful. Maybe he had washed up on foreign shores and no one would find him. He would be free to start a new life, a new identity. He almost smiles at the fleeting thought, to himself, as he closes his eyes, slipping into a dream.

“Lon’qu! Gods, _Lon’qu!_ ” Rustling, panic. Screaming, mad screaming. Wailing.

“Maribelle! Is it…” Concern and more panic. Grappling with belts, leather, a sword. Throwing something, roughly. He feels a cold hand desperately grab his own but it doesn’t feel right, like he’s disembodied. He feels the dark tendrils of sleep, of weariness, so rare, overtaking him. 

“Darling.” A patronizing voice, soft. “Let us take the air.”

“The arrow was large enough to do some significant nerve damage. He won’t be able to walk while I’m healing him. Which will take more time than a typical wound.” She pauses as Aurora bites her lip and wrings her hands. 

“I’m amazed he made it back to shore, sweetheart.” That doesn’t help. Maribelle is trying to soothe the tactician, grasping at her wrists, but the brunette pulls away, frantic, anxiously trying to keep to herself.

They had made slapdash camp on the boggy, dune-hill seaside of Valm. They had made it to the other side of the sea, ditching their remaining ships in a shallow, rocky inlet and making camp some ways away, now decidedly smaller and traveling by foot towards the main harbor. They had fewer horses, less supplies, but information of a Chon’sinese resistance brewing in Valm let them know that they would again be at full strength soon enough. Temporarily, while the Valmese did not know where the Shepherds were, they would hide and recover in the salt and smelly fog of the seaside.

Though everything had essentially gone according to plan—and so Aurora had no reason to be upset—she was hanging on Maribelle’s every word as her chest tightened. Their victory felt tarnished, ominous. She was…afraid, though the heat of battle and the roaring flames were behind her. She had immediately parted from Chrom the second she could manage it, Frederick and the crown prince throwing concerned glances her way as she excused herself from their meeting, unable to focus until she knew what had happened to Lon’qu.

Maribelle continues to speak softly to the tactician but is ignored, her heart pounding and mind racing with thought after panicked thought. Suddenly, she is overcome with emotion, her eyes spilling over. She presses the heels of her gloved hands into her cheeks, trying to stop, but can’t. She sniffles, gasps, coughing and rubbing the tears away, a burning sensation behind her nose, in her sinuses. She hiccups as Maribelle reaches up to softly brush the tears away with the smooth pad of her thumb. What was going on? She didn’t understand. She was—

“You’re in shock, darling,” Maribelle murmurs, looking Aurora up and down. She held the tactician in high regard, but such displays of emotion were…rare on her normally sunny face, that or hardened with the determination of battle. Something had snapped, a dam broke when she heard that Lon’qu was injured, saw him lying unconscious in the medical tent.

Aurora quickly dries her tears after Maribelle goes back into the healing tent. She doesn’t want to leave him, realizing with a fierce stab in her chest how fond she had grown of the Feroxi swordsman, with his bumbling social skills and battle-hardened demeanor. She lingers outside the tent, the cold, salty air beating at her soaked skin and waterlogged cloak, holding her breath, the image of Lon’qu lying there, soaked in blood and not breathing, fixed at the front of her mind. Her fingers grasp at the hem of her sleeve. If she ran back in there, what would she be able to do? 

_Nothing_ , she thinks, a pang in her chest. With a breath, she swallows and walks away. Duty calls; she must take care of herself. Later that evening, she takes a hot bath with coal-heated water, vigorously rubbing the chill out of her bones with a soapy rag. She curls up in a pile of thick, warm blankets in her underclothes before nodding off to sleep on her bedroll, the candle still burning feet away from her face. She tries not to think of Lon’qu.

Aurora rouses in a panic, hours later, the candle blown out and a chorus of crickets screaming outside, accompanying the soft crash of ocean waves on the shore below. She bolts up, the blood rushing out of her head. Scrambling to get dressed, she hops outside while pulling up the boot on her right foot. The moon is full and high in the clear night sky, stars scattered across the dark, inky black dome of the world. The wind blows, cool and with a tinge of salt, stirring the long, brushy grass of the dune on which they camped. It makes her pause for a moment, breathless. The world feels incredibly alive, pulsing with energy. 

Then she remembers—Lon’qu—and takes off towards the healing tent as quick as she can manage. Memories flash by as she runs: the small smiles he would flash her way, the half-hearted chuckles. His dry humor. The dark bruise on his chin from a stray fig, the fire in his eyes while they fought. His closed lids, lashes long, nodding off underneath a tree. Peeling potatoes in the mess. His dark, angular face in the torchlight. How his presence was quietly assuring, both on the battlefield and off. 

Panting, she comes upon the medical tent, the marshy ground splashing and squelching beneath her feet. No candles are lit inside, and she hesitates. She should probably not disturb him, or anyone else for that matter. She had no idea what time it was. She should go back to sleep, but her body is awake now, blood pumping, electrified, breathless. 

Against her better judgement, she feels drawn inside. Swallowing hard, nerves prickling at her skin, she lifts the heavy canvas flap with one hand, peering inside. A few dark forms of injured foot soldiers, wyvern riders, she knew, snore away in their cots, only making up about one row. Aurora spots a mop of dark, fluffy hair further into the tent and quietly dips inside, holding her breath. She treads softly, holding her cloak near to her, breathing thinly and softly through her nose. A soldier stirs and she almost trips over her own two feet, but manages to draw up to the end of Lon’qu’s cot.

 _He looks_ —Aurora muses— _incredibly peaceful_. She feels some unusual blessing, the voice of Naga, telling her to keep this, treasure it, hold tight. It would shatter in her face soon, with the coming drums of war. But perhaps that is her own inner voice, talking to herself. She shakes her head to clear it.

He sleeps, broad chest rising and falling, muscles tied back by a slew of white bandages and tapes across his collarbone and left shoulder. His head lolls back heavily into the pillow, his lips slightly parted, right hand resting on his stomach. The sheet is rolled down to his waist. Aurora wants to reach out and touch him, to make sure he’s real in the dark blue, muted moonlight alongside this peaceful shore. Perhaps she is in a waking dream, violating someone else’s subconscious mind, dream-walking. 

A few dark and swollen bruises mar his battle-hardened skin, trailing randomly down his arms and up onto the right side of his face. _Must have hit something going down_ , she thinks to herself, careful to hold her hands at her sides. Her heart sinks as she looks him up and down again, eyes pricking with tears again and throat clenching. It hurt to see him like this. 

_He didn’t have to do this. Always a suffering martyr, taking on too much. But if he had not…_

She doesn’t want to think about that, she decides. What mattered was that he was here, now.

She shuffles closer and reaches out to touch his motionless left hand, holding her breath again. Her fingers accidentally brush his bare side and she falters, stiffening up. Lon’qu stirs, grunting, tilting his head to the side as a lock of dark hair falls over his eye. Perhaps he would shoot awake with a warrior’s fire and run her through with his sword right then and there.

But he appears to drift back into his slumber. Aurora grasps his hand surely this time, her back aching from leaning over the cot. Lon’qu stirs again.

He makes a deep, satisfied humming noise, then coughs loudly, his right hand abruptly and deftly grabbing hold of her wrist. She stifles a yelp of surprise; she notices that his left arm does not stir, remembering Maribelle’s heartbreaking warning about his recovery. He would not be able to walk for the time being. There was nerve damage.

She couldn’t imagine how someone like Lon’qu, driven by a warrior’s and a Feroxi’s pride, would handle this. How it might change him, how unkind an experience it was. A storm of emotions run through her—shame, anger, and sorrow—and she wonders if she could not have done anything to prevent this. It was the same as when Emmeryn died, but Lon’qu was still here. 

She wants to cry—the second time in twenty-four hours, perhaps the hundredth time since awakening in the Ylissean field—but Lon’qu’s voice, croaking out in the dark, stops the sobs in her throat. 

“A…Aurora…” he murmurs, his normally gruff voice sounding trapped within his chest, choked. He inhales deeply, shakily. He doesn’t bother asking why she is there. All he knows, with certainty, is that it is her, standing over him in the moonlight. However, perhaps it was another dream. Perhaps he is seeing her before he truly dies. If she was merely a phantom, he would still ask his questions. 

“The…the night before the battle…” he struggles, wincing against his wounds and sore muscles. “You touched my hand and…h…held it…” Lon’qu grimaces, squinting, trying to make out Aurora’s vague form standing over him. He wants to squeeze her hand tighter, because he knows it’s there now, but can’t manage to bend a single finger. He growls in frustration, shutting his eyes

“Aurora, do you…” he starts, still unsure of where he’s going. “What do you mean by it?”

He coughs. His face is hot. Fatigue is almost dragging him back down, the dark waves of dreams returning. He was fading in and out of consciousness; the only thing he knew was that she was next to him. He wasn’t on foreign shores. He wasn’t alone. He was still Lon’qu, with his past and the regrettable bonds he had forged with the Shepherds tied to him like chains, dragging him down into vulnerability, sleep. Safety. A simultaneous warmth and cold. 

He hears the rustling of her cloak. She wishes he hadn’t asked about that night. She cried that night. Cried, too, the night after he so boldly reached out and grasped her hand, in the mess, by the torchlight, as she tried to part with him too fast, too hastily, offering him departure, a safe haven. A last-ditch effort to save her own heart, _almost_ , she thinks ruefully. She wants to fade away, to disappear. She squeezes his motionless hand. 

Aurora is silent. The softest touch of her fingertips on his cheek, cool and light, startles him. His eyes fly open, only to see her dip down low and press her warm lips to the outer corner of his mouth.

His right hand releases her wrist and flies to his face as she turns to go, slipping quickly out of the tent flap, leaving behind a sliver of silver light. He has no chance to stop her, nor the energy. His mind, filled with confusion and fog, still questions the reality of the situation. He blinks, eyelids like sandbags, a dull ache throbbing throughout his left side. Again, he tries to wiggle his fingers, to regain sensation, but cannot. Perhaps it truly was a dream. His face burns with blush, her lips having left a searing brand on his skin. It was an unusual sensation but not unpleasant. He drops his hand and sags back into slumber, as best he can while his heart beats a drumming march in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is shorter than the others because i'm struggling a bit, but i hope this is moving in a satisfactory direction! poor Lonk, always getting shot by arrows... i'm sorry its a trope that i love lmao


	4. Chapter 4

Lon’qu grimaces in pain, twisting to get a better view of his bandages. The first sensation is indescribable pain, so much that he sees white for a moment and all the blood leaves his head. He sags forward, exhaling as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Carefully, he sits up again, circulation starting back up, the pain almost completely numbing the left half of his body. Tingles rocket down his left leg, over his hip and into his toes. He raises his arms and peers down at his bandages.

Though he remembers he was shot in the upper back, throwing himself in front of the arrow, a blossoming flower of red blood glares up at his from his side, just above his hip, too near to his heart for any sort of comfort. He breathes hard, fingers shakily beginning to pry the soiled bandages off. He’d be damned if Maribelle would change them again—that was an ordeal in and of itself; he wasn’t sure if he had passed out then from pain or sheer terror. He had been so exposed in front of his comrades—worst of all, Aurora—he decided he needed to make more of an effort to conceal himself, for privacy. He would make do—sustain himself. He blushed at the image of her kindly face in his mind.

The bandage slides off against skin slick with pus and sweat. Damn. _An infection? A different wound?_ Lon’qu’s head reels. He couldn’t remember how he had sustained this one. Perhaps a swipe from a sword, something from falling, from the crashing and burning of their ships. He swallows hard, staring intently at the wound, the flesh mangled, red, and angry. The cut is not deep but it is swelling, and admittedly, Lon’qu wrinkles his nose in disgust as he catches whiff of his scent. The wounds, the saltwater, the sweat…he needed to bathe. 

Feeling unusually confident, he stands from his cot to retrieve a bucket of water but immediately, helplessly, crumples to the ground in a heap, mouth open in a silent gasp. His legs shook, trembled underneath his weight. In an almost blind rage at his condition, he manages to crawl—using mostly his arms in a humiliated tangle of limbs dragging themselves across the dirt and grass floor of the medical tent—over to the corner where buckets of water sit, filled, ready for healing purposes. 

He eagerly dips his hand in and splashes the cool water over his hot skin, soaking the front of his hair. Water drips off the end of his nose. He blinks, marveling for a moment at this unique and terrible situation he found himself in. He then reaches for a spare rag, a bar of soap, and sets about scrubbing whatever skin is already exposed without having to undress himself, sitting there on the ground. The waistband of his pants is soaked by the time he is done, dirt still on his feet, but he feels a bit less disgusting. Then he sets about finding new bandages, rummaging through a pack on the floor. 

“Lon’qu?” a harsh voice blurts.

Lon’qu sits up ramrod straight, gripping the rag so tightly his knuckles go white. Aurora is at his side in an instant, pulling the rag away, tugging at his arms and helping him into a sort of sag over her shoulders. How she could bear his weight, he did not know. She manages to lug him back to the cot where he awoke, half-dumping, half gingerly laying him back down, a cool hand on his side. He grits his teeth, cursing and hissing in pain as she draws near to his injury. His back is on fire, and remotely he is aware of blood quite literally streaming down his leg from the cut on his side. He shuts his eyes, head beating in pain and thirst.

Aurora says nothing. He hears her rustling around the supply corner, water sloshing in a bucket, tearing new bandages, pouring something onto a cloth from a glass bottle. A chemical smell and stinging on his side, enough to make him cry out, accompanies her return to his cot. She sighs through her nose, irritated, wiping and dabbing at the blood on his body. When he feels her hand on the waistband of his pants he nearly leaps up screaming, but restrains himself, too weak, and instead swiftly grabs her wrist.

“N-No…” he grunts. He would not allow such…impropriety.

Aurora sighs, her heart fluttering in mild excitement at his touch—but also in irritation. “Lon’qu, your pants are soaked with blood. You can’t just lie with them like—” she insists. 

“No.” 

A clattering, a violent sloshing as she throws the now dirty rag into the bucket of water. Lon’qu tenses up, releasing her hand like it was a hot coal. She kicks the leg of his cot.

“Damn it, Lon’qu! Stop trying to do everything for yourself!” she shouts. Silence follows, rings in the tent for a moment. Lon’qu thinks he hears the ocean—an afterthought.

He risks cracking open an eye. His throat clenches at her words, not because of what she said, but because of her fury, so rare in someone like her, off the battlefield. Suddenly, she stifles a sob, fist going to her mouth in order to trap the sound in her throat. Lon’qu merely regards her, unable to rouse any words or thoughts. He feels like the audience in a playhouse—dethatched, separated from what he saw and heard, though the ache in his chest betrayed his mental dispassion. Unfortunate, that emotions were not merely an experience of mind, but of body, too. 

His eyes drift downward, away from her. His left leg is covered in blood, cool and wet fabric clinging to his skin. The coppery smell pricks his nose. His vision fades black at the edges, his head growing light. Aurora paces beside his bed, picking the bloody rag back up, wringing out the water. Her eyes are red and puffy. She swallows hard, eyes lowered and focused on her task. 

He relaxes, strength fading against his will to stay awake, alert and vigilant. Who knows what tricks she might pull? He asks himself this, but just as he knows that the beat of his heart is steady and slowing now, he knows he trusts her. He trusted her in battle. He had to trust her now. He was too weak to fight back.

Aurora watches Lon’qu’s head sag back into the pillow with narrowed eyes. _He must be going mad_ , she thinks to herself, busying herself with pulling up a chair to work with a steady hand. _Why resist everyone’s attempts to help? Why injure yourself so carelessly?_ First, leaping in front of a longbow to save her life, now this, trying to clean and dress his own, fresh wounds. 

“Rely on me sometimes…” Aurora mutters. She knows she said “me,” instead of “us.” She knew she was one of the only soldiers in the Shepherds he talked to. And this…his injury, such a calamitous experience as this, had made her realize just how important he had grown to her. How big the space in her heart it was that he occupied. 

She gets to work the way Maribelle had taught her; first removing his pants, relieved to find he is wearing underclothes, gently wiping him down before rolling the sheets up to his waist. She slips the dry bandages underneath his heavy torso as he weakly lifts himself to aid her. She rounds his torso three more times before tucking one end of the white cloth underneath the other. Then she takes a rag, an old piece of cloth, and ties that as a secondary bandage around his wound. Hopefully that would stop any leaking, with enough pressure. 

The tactician frowns as she notices that he still has leftover grime from the battle on his face. She wrings out the rag again. His hair is already wet from his attempted wash, tendrils and curls spilling and soaking into the pillow like seaweed on the shore. He breathes slowly, in and out, through his nose, eyes shut. However, the moment she leans over him he stills, holding his breath, eyes half-lidded, glowering up at her.

“Please don’t make that face,” she whispers softly.

Aurora frowns in concentration and gingerly dabs the moist cloth against Lon’qu’s forehead, already beginning to sweat again. The weather had become grossly humid and the air rank with marsh and salt within the last three days they were camped by the seaside.

Lon’qu’s eyes move slowly up her hovering form, taking note of details—the dip in her beige undershirt, her slender neck, the tip of her chin and the chapped, bitten lips below her pointed nose. The air between them is still. He closes his eyes to avoid looking at anything else. Aurora notices that his skin is unusually pallid, from the blood loss or the early morning light, she did not know. She hopes he does not catch a fever, get sicker, have an infection. Any number of dreadful things. 

He swallows hard, aware of how close she is, leaning over him.

Aurora works diligently, wiping away sweat, grime, and traces of dried blood at his hairline, but her eyes stray downwards, towards his collarbone, his strong shoulders and firm biceps, his pectoral muscles, glistening with a slight sheen of sweat. She clears her throat and blinks, looking away, removing her hand and sitting up in her chair.

“There. Are your bandages comfortable?” She stares at her feet, going over the subtle curves and details of his body in her mind, memorizing them. She can hear the seaside beating at the shore far away. Her face is hot. Why was she thinking such impure thoughts? She frantically tries to beat them back with a mental stick. 

“Yes,” he says, deep voice rumbling in his chest. The sheets rustle as he attempts to roll onto his side. “This isn’t your job, you know,” he adds, sighing deeply through his nose. 

Aurora fidgets and fiddles with her fingers, her mind skipping around like a broken magic tome, like wind through the pages of a book. She looks up as the tent flap blows open. No one was there.

“I know. I just want to help. Because…” She trails off. _Because you saved my life._ Perhaps it was better not to say such things. Abruptly, heavy breathing tells her that Lon’qu has drifted off to sleep. 

She risks a furtive glance over her shoulder. He indeed appears asleep, bandaged chest rising and falling slowly, long dark lashes closed over his eyes, head resting in the crook of his arm. A smile creeps onto her face and she rises, wiping her hands on the already dirty cloth.

Lon’qu had been occupying more and more of her thoughts lately. She had helped him, that first day after Maribelle began her work, to start walking again, leaning heavily against his sword. After almost an hour of futile efforts to walk without support, the swordmaster cursing and griping the whole time while leaning heavily against Aurora’s shoulders and his sturdy sword sheath, they gave up, returning him to his medical cot.

She returns later that evening for a simpler visit. This time, they stay up late, awkwardly conversing at first, then as the time creeps on, laugh, share stories as well as comfortable silences. Again, they pretend that Aurora had not gingerly changed his bandages that day, that she hadn’t pressed her lips to his merely 24 hours ago. 

“Darling, you should get some rest,” the healer had urged her in a soothing voice, running her palm over Aurora’s brown locks. The tactician had fallen asleep in her chair, bent at the waist, arms resting on Lon’qu’s cot. The candlelight still burned, shadows dancing on the walls. Maribelle walked her back to her tent and kissed her forehead goodnight.

Aurora had wanted to sleep that night but an abrupt panic had gripped her, seizing her mind with fingers of steel. What had she been _doing?_ Idling away her time like this, tending to the needs of a single soldier while the whole army was relying on her. Even the Chon’sin revolution was awaiting their arrival, their support. Chrom’s worried face loomed in her mind, and she stayed awake as the sun rose, pouring over tomes and maps, scratching wild notes in the margins, even on her hands, over the mark of Grima that she had so come to loathe. 

She forgot all about her duties when she was with Lon’qu. Was this something good? She could not tell, but was inclined to deny it. She was more significantly perturbed that he had not gruffly and angrily sent her away, or even attempted to do so. He had been positively docile when it came to her aid. He would normally put duty above all else, out of all the Shepherds, especially when it came to her company, that of a woman. It made her head hurt to think about for too long.

Maribelle, the saint, comes to wake her in the morning. Aurora is passed out on the ground of her tent, sleeping belly-down, half-off the bedroll, arms splayed across her papers and snoring. _How did she not get any bugs or dirt in her mouth?_ Maribelle wonders with a frown. She gently prods the graceless tomboy awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'VE BEEN STRUGGLING SO HARD I'M SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT.......


	5. Chapter 5

Almost a month had passed from the time Lon’qu was so gravely injured. Thanks to Aurora’s attentiveness and Maribelle’s healing skill, the swordmaster had been restored to his former strength. And, it was not for a moment too soon. Their fight with Walhart was long and brutal—the conqueror took out many Chon’sinese soldiers as well as smaller infantry units Aurora had decided to send ahead. And then, his khan, Basilio, the old daft fool, curse him, had led the charge one final time. Flavia dealt the final blow, but word came back that the boisterous West-khan, the one who had practically raised Lon’qu, had perished.

Lon’qu was so stunned he did not speak for days on end. He refused to believe someone so strong as Basilio had fallen, but again, his recklessness might have gotten the better of him. He imagined the Khan still standing over him, clapping a broad hand across his back, the smell of liquor poisoning the air around them, laughing like a barking dog. Lon’qu detested the scene he would bring with him everywhere, but something was missing in their army now. Something so central to his own identity had vanished.

_What a reckless fool._

Lon’qu stares at his open hand. The sun beats down from above, the cicadas scream. It was high summer now, Lon’qu’s least favorite season. He hoped it would pass quickly, like in a haze, a fog on a cooler morning. Something uneasy was in the air now—something wrong. An emptiness that had yet to be filled. He flexes his fingers, clenching them into a fist.

Lon’qu and Aurora fought hard on the battlefield—almost exclusively together now. He wondered if it really was the best strategy, the best pairing, tactics-wise, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching over each other. Making sure the other didn’t die. Ever since his injury, Aurora felt an intense need to protect Lon’qu—to stand by him, though she knew he could take care of himself. The death of Basilio had cast a pallor over the whole camp, especially between the tactician and the Feroxi.

“Pay attention!” he shouted to Aurora—more gruffly than he intended—as he felled a raggedly-clad Risen with blinding speed. His newly sharpened blade cut through the creature’s body as if passing through water. Aurora did not need to voice her thanks, and merely made eye contact with him as she whirled to direct a bright bolt of lightning at a charging Valmese cavalry unit. The horse screamed as it fell, the ground practically exploding in a shower of dirt and various other shrapnel.

Lon’qu lunged forward to strike down another foot soldier, bloodlust surging in his throat and chest for such an army to dare attack Ferox, to oppress Chon’sin. The political problems had brought about brigands—vigilantes, vagabonds, thieves—who had murdered his only friend all those years ago. His attacks were filled with something Aurora had never seen before, an unbridled rage and aggression, but she did not have time to question it. It made her heart beat faster—from fear or fascination, she didn’t know.

The feeling of adrenaline from the fight had long gone, leaving a bitter taste in Lon’qu’s mouth. Some “victory,” it was, when the West Khan was dead and Plegia was on the brink of war with Ylisse, _again_. It had something to do with their new king, Validar, but Lon’qu had not bothered to listen to all the details. He began withdrawing into himself again after Basilio’s passing—merely a tool to be used to achieve a goal. Aurora had not pressed him, either, surprisingly. He felt that she understood his need to grieve alone.

They had trekked back to southern Ylisse, to the Plegian border, where the sand and sun were hot and unyielding. Time he did not spend training or preparing was occupied by long stints of solitude—sitting under the thick leaves of the sparse trees, slaving away against a whetstone, polishing his blade, partaking in activities that usually pushed his physical limits, such as jogging, or carrying heavy supplies. If he kept his body occupied, his mind would follow. At least he hoped. 

Though when he did see Aurora around camp, she seemed extremely somber and tense. The death of the khan hit her hard as well, but still she put on a front for most of the shepherds, lecturing about “destiny,” and “bonds,” and the power they seemed to hold. _Tell me, tactician,_ he wanted to say, _what good are such “bonds,” when someone who raised me since childhood passes so arbitrarily?_ He was unconvinced that she truly believed her own words, cynical and tightly clenching onto his small heart. He wanted to tell himself that this was the way to survive in this unwieldly and cruel world.

The physical contact between them had not changed, but the few instances he remembered—in great and almost sickening detail given their minute significance—began to drive him mad. She continued to pretend like nothing had happened. He supposed he was relieved to also play along, but at the same time he felt that he was owed an explanation. Irritation boiled in his stomach if and when she recoiled from his side, or avoided him by needlessly crossing camp—normally he would feel a wash of relief. It perplexed him; he had never felt such things before.

One night, just days before they march into Plegia to confront Validar, one of his frequent recurring nightmares awakens Lon’qu. He jolts awake with a sharp gasp, violently and instinctively curling himself into a protective gesture, one hand forming a fist and the other flying up to shield himself. Then he suddenly becomes very aware of his own weight, fatigue, and surroundings. He relaxes back into his cot, experimentally flexing his fingers, uncurling his toes. He feels beads of sweat dripping lazily down his lower back. The back of his neck is drenched, his hair limp and damp from the humidity. He sighs, flopping onto his back, sprawling as far as he can, letting gravity shift his bones and muscles and blood back into place.

Rising and dressing fully with his sword and armor, he goes to relieve himself briefly in the woods. It was often hard to tell what time it was when he woke in the night like this; it was always better if he got up. That way it seemed as though there was some reprieve from his endless nights—where he just had nightmare after nightmare, then weakly fell asleep again for what could be merely twenty minutes’ time. He couldn’t remember the last time he dreamed well. Rising and dressing made him feel more alive and less trapped in a sea of dark.

On his way back to his tent, he hears something in the night. He stops, ears pricked, straining to listen to what he can identify as the muffled sobs of a woman. No one was awake, it was nearly dawn, and camp was as silent as death except for this one, distant sound. Broken sobbing, gasps for breath. He and this other woman were the only two awake.

It could’ve been a phantom, but Lon’qu never really believed in such things. A phantom might have been a less terrifying prospect than an actual, weeping human female.

For more than a minute he paces in that spot, in the middle of camp, wearing a rut in the ground—for more than a minute he debates what to do. He could return to his tent and she would have her little moment on her own. He wouldn’t intrude.

And when he looks closer at the only two tents illuminated in the dead of night—he realizes they are the tactician’s, and the mess hall. It had to be Aurora who was awake, weeping.

His heartbeat begins to race as his feet carry him swiftly and silently nearer to the noise. He feels as though he is moving through a dark soup with the night all around him.

He draws up to the tent slowly, sticking one hand out in front of him to touch the fabric before listening some more. He swallows every breath his chest screams at him to take, blinking slowly, all the while listening. Sobbing. Some soft moaning. Is she in pain? A gasp or two for air, some pitiful whimpering. There was no wind or storm out tonight to cover the noise, and Lon’qu was surprised that no one else had heard.

“Aurora?” he tries. Instantly the crying stops. His voice was no more than a rasp, and he coughs to clear it. When he is answered only with silence, he presses further.

“I…I’m coming in,” he says, lips forming words and chest rumbling with their sound but his mind not fully registering their impact. He tentatively lifts the tent flap with the back of his hand and ducks his head inside. For a ridiculous moment, he wonders if a fig would hit him square in the forehead.

Robin sits there, on the far edge of her bed, back hunched over in her massive cloak. It appears she hasn’t slept either. He head is turned down and hidden, wavy brown bangs cascading over her pale face. Her hands lay limply in her lap, and for a moment he is surprised she hadn’t tried to fix herself, hadn’t scrambled to look presentable.

Maybe it was because it was the middle of the night—maybe it was because it was Aurora—but the barrier of pretense and formality felt like it had shimmered away into the dark. He had crossed some boundary, and so had she.

“Are you…” he starts, again not entirely sure where he was going with the words. “Are you alright?” he asks. Immediately he knows that is a stupid question. Any idiot could see that she was not alright.

“I mean…” he mutters, taking a step forward, and stopping. He tries to visualize approaching her, but remains locked in place. “I can see that you’re not alright. I simply…heard you crying, and I…”

“I am here. I would like to know why you’re crying, Aurora,” he stammers, blurts, awkwardly bumbles out before biting his lip. He feels stiff and embarrassed. Little did he know, Aurora was more embarrassed than he was, hot with shame.

“You want to know why I’m crying?” she asks, not looking at him, not moving. Lon’qu freezes.

“Yes.” Did he not utter those words a moment ago?

“You really want to know?” she snaps now, slowly turning her head around too look at him. Stringy hair sticks to patches of her face sticky and wet with tears. Her eyes are sleepless and darkly ringed, boring into him like daggers. His breath leaves him temporarily. She grips the sheets tightly now, in fists, her shoulders raised, almost like the hackles on a wolf about to attack.

“I…I just…” Aurora sputters, her voice cracking, looking at Lon’qu hard, staring intensely. But cracks quickly appear in the painting; the image begins to shatter. Her voice and lip wobble; her dark gaze spills over with fresh, hot tears. She sobs, visibly gasping in front of him. Her hand flies to her throat, clutching at a lump that threatens to suffocate her. She covers her mouth, squeezing tightly, trying to swallow her sadness like a poison.

“It’s stupid,” she says, her voice muffled. “Just go away.”

This moment reminded Lon’qu of himself, very briefly. Of how he never told anyone about his nightmares. Never told anyone why he was wary of women. He shut up his emotions and pain so that no one ever needed to bother with it. He didn’t want to look at a mirror image of himself. More so, he didn’t want to see her cry anymore.

“No.” He would not leave her. “Why were you crying?”

Aurora continues sobbing, curling inside herself, turning away again with her back to him. He walks over, quickly, no longer visualizing what he needed to do, but instead just doing it. Throwing himself into the chasm. Usually people being emotional made him uncomfortable, made him want to run away. But because he saw her behaving like he might have, years ago, perhaps even now—something clicked. Something connected and something changed, and he wanted to change the outcome of the situation. He felt that unique feeling of agency again, like when she offered him leave and he refused. He was here _because of her._ He was here _for her._

Lon’qu sits beside her on the bed but she turns further and further away, falling onto her side, biting at her hand as her mouth opens in a guttural sob. Saliva dribbles out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes squeeze shut incredibly tight, her entire face grows red. She cries more, she cries harder than before, breaths coming in gasps. Perhaps his presence was upsetting her further.

Aurora wanted to fade away. Her chest ached so much and her heart wanted to burst. Her mind was static, a screaming fog, a rush of hot blood. _She was trapped. She couldn’t do anything._ What good were her tactics, her supposed independence, if fate was bound to make her a slave to evil anyway? Her body rises and falls with the terrible ferocity of her sobs. She tries to cover her mouth with her shaking hand but just shrinks more, pressing her chin to her chest and pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes. With a deep breath, she wails now, bucking back, letting her arms cover her mouth. Anguish. 

Lon’qu’s unsure hand hovers over her side for a moment, half-horrified, half-entranced at her fierce emotions. He had never seen someone cry like this before. He shakily tries to reach out, to stroke her hair, the least terrifying part of a woman, but can’t do it. He bites his lip and watches her cry, indecision tearing at his heart like a wolf.

As she lets out a shriek, he tries to stop her by surging forward and grabbing her by the waist. She stills, the noise stopping in her throat.

“Please, calm down,” he begs, voice soft. His heart was racing because he had grabbed her with both hands. He leans down. Hovering over her shaking form as her sobs quiet, he speaks.

“You’ll wake up the entire camp with that racket. Please.”

She was listening. She had stopped screaming and was now only quietly gasping for breath, trembling in his arms. Then he realized how close he had actually leaned. His collarbone could have touched her bicep, if he dipped 4 inches lower. Her feet touched his thigh. Her face, beautiful and red and messy, was just a mere foot away from his.

Her still-wet eyes stare up at him, wide and bewildered as his were. His lips are parted slightly, taking in barely wisps of breath. Her hair was mussed and tangled and stuck to her cheeks, there was snot almost dribbling out of her nose. She clumsily snivels.

Something bubbles up in his chest, his throat, and he lets out a laugh, releasing her waist and sitting up. Aurora starts giggling as well, the feeling of inhibition abruptly melting away like snow on warm skin. 

As quickly as he laughed, he composes himself, wrestling the conversation back to his concern for her weeping. 

“But why are you crying, Aurora?” he asks again, an almost pleading edge to his voice. He grips the edge of the bed with white knuckles, glaring at the floor in front of him, feeling the wall come back up between them again.

“It’s about…” she starts, unsure of herself, voice choked from her tears. “It’s about Plegia. And Validar.”

The silence hangs in the air heavily, the woods outside of the tent filled with a screaming chorus of crickets. The air is refreshingly cool. Aurora’s candlelight flickers over the walls of her tent. The bed creaks as she sits up, running a hand through her hair, wiping a fist over her red cheek.

Lon’qu is not sure he understands, but utters a low hum, permitting her to continue.

“I…I might be Validar’s daughter. Something…related to the Grimleal.” She continues, haltingly. A hand on the back of her neck, nervous rubbing. “I don’t know for sure. No one….no one but Chrom knows. And now you.”

Again with the sharing of secrets and defying the commander. Lon’qu narrows his eyes and examines his feet. He is afraid, in that moment, that he is suddenly caught up in something terribly bigger than he could imagine, something he couldn’t possibly understand. This is where the unease was leading him, ever since Basilio died. The feeling of being untethered, fumbling in the dark. A situation out of his control, beyond his influence.

“Lon’qu…” Aurora murmurs, voice thick with emotion. Lon’qu’s head snaps up at the sound; it makes goosebumps break out over his arms and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He stares at her, deep into her eyes, heart racing faster than in the thick of battle. He swallows the lump in his throat.

Tentatively reaching upward, Aurora tenderly strokes the back of her knuckles on Lon’qu’s cheek, running them down to his chin like water or a stray tear. The air feels frozen and super-heated. Time stops. Lon’qu holds his breath.

They’re incredibly close now. He feels Aurora’s breath on his cheek. His dark lashes flutter; his lips tremble. He feels like he’s falling into a dark chasm, the pull of gravity too strong. Fear, crippling fear, but Aurora’s other hand on his cheek dissipates that feeling, grounds him. She cradles his face with gentle fingers, guiding him towards her. Their lips brush, so softly it drives Lon’qu mad, their hot breath in each other’s mouths, tingles shooting from his face all the way down to his toes. He lets go with a sigh, closing his eyes.

Lon’qu feels a tear slide down her cheek, so gently brushing against his. Their mouths open against one another, welcoming the warmth and softness of each other’s lips. Suddenly, he never wants this moment to end. Hands shaking like dead leaves, he takes her face in his grip, trying to be as gentle as she is, afraid he would crush her in that moment. He pushes a lock of hair behind her ear with his thumb, afraid to move any more than that. 

They part. Aurora’s eyes are glistening with new tears. She pushes her slender fingers up into his hair and the sensation is enough to make Lon’qu shudder.

“I’m scared, Lon’qu,” she whispers, lip trembling again. It is if they share the same mind then. He is also shaking with fear—of different things, of different people, of different emotions. But Aurora is scared too. 

Hesitantly, so breathless that he’s afraid he might pass out, he leans forward and presses his lips to the tear, the wet streak on her cheek. It tastes salty. He feels her hand go for his, lying in his lap. She gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m here,” he says solemnly. Aurora leans forward, resting her head in the crook of his neck. Her hair is soft on his skin. He smells like pine and earth, of fresh summer scents. Nothing in her short life, in all her memories since waking up, had felt more right.

“I love you.” He says it, so softly it almost doesn’t come out. He runs a thumb over her knuckles, stares up into space. His chest is so tight he’s afraid he might cry as well.

“Never leave me,” she replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first bit i am happy with in a while!! let me know if you want me to continue from here! ;):););0:)kjhDF


	6. Chapter 6

Lon’qu awakens from a deep and dreamless sleep. His body feels heavy, his mind blank; the world around him blurs into focus as he blinks—once, twice. His eyes feel crusty, the air humid and clinging to his bare skin. The morning light is grey and dim.

Sighing, he rolls onto his side. Aurora is hunched over her desk a few feet away, scribbling something madly onto a piece of parchment. The strange purple tattoo on the back of her hand flashes as she moves. His heart beats slowly and warmly in his chest; he feels a deep satisfaction, a peace almost completely foreign to him, as he watches her. Her brown hair is mussed, her cloak merely draped over her shoulders. Furrowing his brow, Lon’qu wonders if she is cold. Pausing in her frantic movements, her shoulders sag, her head lowers. She shoves her pale hands roughly into her hair, ruffling it, groaning softly in frustration.

Lon’qu closes his eyes and inhales deeply, savoring the quiet of the morning. The night comes back to him in snippets behind his eyelids—warmth, incredible, savory warmth…touch and skin on bare skin, searing pleasure coursing through his body. His broad hands traveling over every inch of her, her breasts, her chest, her smooth back, finding and noting the scars along her back much too similar to his own. Her hot and needy kisses as they went again and again into the night, collapsing in a heap in each other’s sweaty arms, inexperienced and learning, fascinated and thrilled at discovering this experience, each other’s bodies, together.

He flushes merely thinking about it, still mostly incredulous that it had happened. Clumsily, they had made love, their first time with anyone else before.

Aurora notices that her lover is awake.

“Lon’qu, good morning,” she hums, a faint smile crossing her face. His warm, dark eyes gaze up at her from where he lies with an almost sickening sweetness. Aurora tries not to flinch, to hold back a cry of pain, of agony. A feeling of terrible unease has been eating at her for hours since she rose before dawn and kept working on battle strategies. What Lon’qu didn’t know was that she was also writing some small letters, final thoughts and wishes as her supposed “destiny,” or battle with the vessel of Grima, drew closer by the hour.

She didn’t know if it was exactly the right thing to do—to consummate her relationship with Lon’qu days before the battle—or if it was selfish, reckless, creating ties that would only stay her hand in her most dire moment. The pleasure, the happiness she felt that night, and now, were undeniable feelings, so she didn’t regret it. Lon’qu had grown to be her closest companion, and there was no longer any form of distance between them.

She tried so hard to hide her misgivings, the silent desperation in any touch against Lon’qu, any glance his way. A simple grasp of his hand almost ripped sobs from the pit of her stomach. Her heart was aching—she had not told him of the consequences of what would happen when she might attempt to defy fate.

She had told him to never leave her, the night they confessed. But then she left him. She felt like a hypocrite, a fool, a traitor of a lover, a coward for holding back when those most precious to her needed to know of her intentions. She went numb—she couldn’t betray a thing, she did not weep when Lon’qu kissed her before drawing his sword. She hoped he would chalk it up to nerves, to stress.

The wind whipped at Lon’qu’s hair, blowing it back from his forehead, blasting past his ears, deafening him. The atmosphere above Origin Peak was dense with volcanic heat. He had struggled to find his balance on the shifting, unusual terrain of the fell dragon’s back, but the battle had progressed nonetheless. Now, Aurora and—was it her sister?—were facing off near the dragon’s head. He lagged about a hundred feet behind her, sword brandished but body frozen.

It happened too fast, too fast for Lon’qu to exclaim anything as Aurora’s body fell, too fast to even reach out for her. Grima’s hierophant duplicate collapsed in front of her, their screams of rage and wails of defeat echoing off the mountaintop and rattling his bones beneath his skin. The fell dragon was perishing, fading away, and Aurora had dealt the final blow. Her physical form filtered into the air like the crushed petals of a flower.

He didn’t understand what was happening, but simultaneously, it all made sense. Everything was a blur. The dragon fell, they were transported back to the earth, but Lon’qu didn’t want to be alive. The others were as silent and mournful as him, but Lon’qu had gone into shock.

It couldn’t have been real. Had the only other woman he loved perished? _Fate, if this is what she called it_ —he thought cynically— _had a twisted sense of humor._ He felt grounded for merely a day and a night, anchored in their love and companionship, and then she had been wrenched away from him.

Maybe she tore herself away. Chrom had offered, emphatically, to deal the final blow. He tried to tell himself that she was right, she was smarter, had more foresight. But moaning and weeping desperately in anguish, alone, back in camp at Ylisse, holding the whittling knife like a dagger in front of his stomach, his hand trembling, made him question everything. He wanted anything but to go through this again—he would rather be dead than relive this pain. He wished again and again that he had Basilio back, he wished, he ached, for Aurora’s light touches, for the softness of her lips, for the way she had never stopped trying to be with him. He withdrew, he shut down, he went numb. Life became one flat shade of grey, and he wept bitterly.

He went through each stage of grief, but as the gods of the universe seemed to take glee in punishing him, it was not all one neat experience. Every day he went through every stage, battling the depression, heart flaring with rage at his lover for doing this to him, lashing out, denying it all, imagining what she would have wanted, how he should be acting. He realized he had, in fact, known, deep down. This was her intention all along—to save as many of them as possible, to put her own life on the line. He imagined he would have tried to stop her, but knows he wouldn’t, as he replays the battle over and over in his mind.

It seemed to many of the Shepherds that they could not comfort him, not even Vaike, or Gregor. Nothing seemed to work, to penetrate the stone walls he had erected around his heart. If Chrom even attempted to comfort him, to speak of Aurora as he had known her, Lon’qu might have killed the Exalt on the spot. He let her choose this path. He sat idly by.

But as the months passed, the feelings visited him less frequently. He swore to not forget a thing, not one sensation or memory, but new duties soon distracted him from the single-minded task that was grief. Flavia sent for him in Ferox, and he took up a position as regent until a new Khan made a name for themselves. Morgan, a grown boy, showed up and challenged him to a duel, claiming to be his son, as if mocking him. He saw her eyes staring back at him, he felt her emotional delicacy in the way the boy carried himself, the insecure manner in which he placed his words when not behind a sword. The fidgeting, the love of tactics. His dedication to the blade and dark, wild hair reminded Lon’qu of himself in his youth, alone in Chon’sin.

He wanted to hate Morgan. Why was he here, alive, when so clearly his mother had perished? But everything about him reminded Lon’qu of Aurora, so he could not. They did not speak much. Morgan kept his distance, staying at Ylisstol Castle with some of the other future children, occasionally visiting Lon’qu in Ferox. Their interactions were curt and formal, though Lon’qu detected desperation for his attention in the boy’s voice. Sometimes, he even wondered if the child was his. He and Aurora had not married, had not been together more than once. He had never courted her, had not even proposed. How could this creature be of his flesh and blood? What cruelty did the gods have next in mind for him?

Flavia surprised him one snowy morning by walking him outside the Feroxi capital stronghold. The snow crunched underneath their boots, the sun glistened off the ice-covered limbs of bare trees. Flavia silently pointed to a singular stone grave-post piercing through the snow-covered ground. Aurora’s name was carved into it in Chon’sinese. Flowers already lay before it.

Lon’qu choked back his emotions with a curt statement of gratitude. Inside, however, was a cascade of heat and anguish, like waves of lava in a volcanic sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so short, but honestly, this is really the direction I wanted to take this in, as well as my attempt to make it still fit vaguely into some skeleton of the canon timeline/make it make sense/actually have some damn continuity. Obviously, Morgan has showed up super late, Basilio hasn't returned, and MU didn't marry before she disappeared.
> 
> This is the end of PART ONE, so don't worry. I want to explore marriage and family issues between these two, so PART TWO will sort of be the blossoming of that. So, this isn't a cop-out or random angst-y ending, which I really hope it doesn't seem like. This whole first part has been sort of "passage of time-ambiguous" and my exploration of "army life" and the slow burn of a relationship--and this ending is simply the segue into part two. 
> 
> I've been so grateful for your love and support on this fic, it's been unreal. I'll definitely be publishing more, and other Lonbin works, have no fear! I'm literally obsessed with Lonk, I have at least 8 charms of him, so i'm like....never gonna give him up forreal


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